Ketzaleh: The Shalit Intifada has Broken Out

National Union leader blames Netanayhu government's Shalit deal and other shows of weakness for current wave of violence.

By Gil Ronen

First Publish: 2/23/2012, 6:29 PM

Arab rock throwers

Flash 90

Arab attacks on Jewish motorists and security forces continued Thursday in what Jews are beginning to see as another burgeoning "intifada" – an Arabic term referring to an uprising.

National Union Chairman MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) laid the blame for the deterioration at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's doorstep, citing the Shalit deal as one of the decisions that projected weakness to Israel's Arab neighbors.

At Al Hadr just south of Bethlehem, Arabs threw rocks at a car with Israeli license plates this morning. The car was damaged but no one was hurt. In another incident, Arabs hurled rocks at an Israeli bus near Tekoa in the eastern Etzion Bloc. No one was hurt.

More rioting took place in the afternoon at Al Hadr, with some 50 Arabs taking part in the violence. There was rioting near Abu Dis, in East Jerusalem. In both places, the Arabs rolled burning tires at IDF forces that had come to stop the rioting.

An Arab woman carrying a switchblade was arrested at the entrance to the Cave of Patriarchs in Hevron in the morning. She admitted under interrogation that she had intended to stab a police officer and be arrested. She once carried out a similar act in the past and was arrested.

MK Katz noted that "Since the Likud government under Netanyahu-Barak freed hundreds of terrorist murderers and allowed many to return into Judea and Samaria in the Shalit deal, the 350,000 Jews of Judea and Samaria and the hundreds of thousands who drive on the roads are exposed to rock-throwing terror and a real intifada."

"Hopefully," Ketzaleh added, "when Israeli citizens vote on Election Day, they will remember that Netanyahu, who promised to build, has [in fact] frozen and razed, and that Bibi who promised to safeguard security led to its collapse."

"The loyal MKs in Likud failed, with all of their virtues, to stop the declaration of two states, the freeze on construction and the demolitions, and now – the rising terror. Netanyahu treats them as he treated the tissue paper he threw into the garbage can as he publicly humiliated his trusted government secretary, Tzvika Hauser."

MK Katz was referring to an incident in which Netanyahu berated Hauser for failing to install a lock in the door to the cabinet meeting room, as TV cameras were rolling.